What is it?

My wife bought this thing for me several years ago and I don't know what it

is. My closest guess is some kind of old slide projector. I have more

pictures of it at http://www.cbwerner.net/what_is_it.htm. Does anybody have

any clue as to what it is? Thanks.

 

Chris<div></div>

Yes, it is a slide projector. I would guess for 3?"X4" glass plates. Is there any label to indicate the manufacturer?

The barrel of the front lens has etched into it "McAllister" and "New York".

 

Chris.

That what it is ,there should be a oil lamp in the housing on the right.You can clean up the mahogany and Brass and make it a nice show piece.

In looking at your other photos , it might be rigged for natural gas,that was piped to the brass pipe in the back of the housing. The lens infront of it focuses and brightens the light. You might put a low wattage bulb in there, like a christmas light, and project a glass slide on the wall. You can find glass lantern slides on ebay.

I went and looked at the pipe in the back. It's solid and slides up and back on two bars along a track.

 

An internet search came up with a page on "Magic Lanterns" and Magic Slides" that included this entry. I guess that suggests that Thomas made the one I have in the late 19th century?

 

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McALLISTER

Leading American family of optical lantern manufacturers. In 1775 John McAllister emigrated to the USA from Scotland. He worked as a house carpenter, made whips and walking sticks, sold spectacles and optical goods before he opened an enlarged optical business in Philadelphia. From 1798 to 1811the business trades as McAllister & Mattews, then as McAllister & Son. From 1830 the firm traded under the name John McAllister & Co. and possible that was also the start of their work with magic lanterns. By 1846 they were a leading American dealer in magic lanterns and slides. Some ten years later the name changed to McAlister & Brother when John's grandsons William and Thomas Hamilton McAllister took over the management. In the 1860s they further expanded the photographic department and started to sell a wide selection of optical and mathematical instruments.

 

In 1866 Thomas left Philadelphia to open an optical supplies business in New York. In the 1880s the company published a large catalogue of lanterns and slides, most of them imported from France and Britain; the toy lanterns probably from Germany. The company offered a biunial Metropolitan model and later also triunial International Stereopticons. From 1875 the firm also offered lantern slides; among them the slides of York & Son, London.

 

The Philadelphia firm traded under the name W.Y. McAllister. In 1876 William sold the lantern business to the company's foreman, Charles T. Milligan, who continued in the lantern trade until 1900.

 

After the death of his father in 1898, C.W. McAllister became the new director of the firm and he was later joined by L.A. McAllister, another member of the family. From the early 1900s the New York firm gradually concentrated on professional lanterns and moving picture machines. Under the trade name McAllister-Keller Co. Inc., from 1917, the firm continued until 1942. (See also: Magic Lanterns McAllister)

I've got one that's similar. Mine used to be used in Sunday School to project the hymns on a wall because there were not enough books for everyone. The glass plates were about 4x5"

Doug